Boil went wrong, help needed

[maple flats]

Today, (open house, Maple Weekend) the morning boil went ok, but then about 3.5 hrs into the boil, after starting with a clean pan things started to change. The first indication was lots of foaming in the last 2 of 4 channels in the syrup pan. I rarely do it, but I put 2-3 drops of defoamer in those 2 channels, it made no difference. Added 2 more, still no help. We then shut down to clean the syrup pan. It just looked like typical sugarsand on the bottom. We drained the pan and added white vinegar to clean it out. After cleaning using both a nylon spatula and scrub pads (nylon) the pan was cleaned. We then pumped what we had drained out back into the pan and started the fire again. Within 30 minutes it started again. Finally after an hour we shut down, it was then 3:50 and all visitors had left. After cooling down and the coals had burned up, we drained the pan again, or I should say we tried. We opened the auto draw and nothing came out, but we could see an inch depth in that draw off box. We then drained the pan thru the opposite draw off box. When it was drained we found a layer of goo mostly in the last channel where it should have been drawing off. In that channel the goo was between 1/4 and 3/8" deep. In the draw off box there is a roughtly 3/4" deep channel all across that side of the draw off (or float box) depending on the direction of flow. That channel was full, as was the draw off and all parts between the two. There it was not gooey, it was like a hard candy. It took us about 90 minutes to get things freed up, using a nylon spatula and even a screw driver trying to poke thru the hard inside the 1" piping and a spray of 110F permeate from the hose nozzle.
Question, have I had my first ever encounter with ropey syrup? Or could this be something else. I have never seen anything like it. The sap I was boiling was very slightly cloudy but still had no small to it. I concentrated it to 9-11% sugar. The sap was collected Thursday afternoon.
the boil this morning with the same sap went like usual. WE have had no freeze since Thursday morning when it was 15, then above freezing by 11:00 and up to 48 in the afternoon. Then Friday we started at 32, then up to 50 and the low today was 37. We then went up to 66 F.
If it was ropey syrup, if we get a freeze does the sap ever return to being able to make good syrup this season. We have dumped all remaining sap and we dumped both pans. We will boil permeate tomorrow which should clean things up well. Then our forecast shows a high tomorrow with no freeze tonight, but then 25 into Monday morning and 25 again into Tuesday morning with the daytime highs 45 and under. Is it possible for the sap to turn good again or is it over for me for this year.
Your opinion please?

[maple flats]

By the way, during the boil it smelled good, like syrup usually does.

[Sugarmaker]

Dave,
Sounds a lot like ropey syrup.
Regards,
Chris

[mainebackswoodssyrup]

I’ve only seen it once, for the large operation we work 4 or 5 years ago. Sap looked OK and smelled OK but it turned to jelly in the evaporator. Could actually see it some in the feed tube which is where we first noticed it. It was near the end of the year. They chose to shut it down and call it a season. You will need to do a thorough cleaning of the entire evaporator if you want to try again. Check the concentrate in the tank before you boil again. You will probably see it with a closer look.

[maple flats]

I have drained the entire evaporator and the sap tanks along with the head tank. Being an open house tomorrow we will boil permeate. That should likely clean everything. We will also wash the tanks with hot permeate. Does anyone know if this mandates the end of the season for me?

[RileySugarbush]

I think if you clean everything up and start with fresh sap you should be fine. The problem starts in stored sap or sweet in the pans, not in the trees. I suppose if you had a lot of sap in mainlines in warm weather it could be a problem. We had this happen late in the season years ago. Pretty disgusting isn't it?

[maple flats]

We will lso dump any sap in our lease woods tank after the freeze Monday morning. Then wash the tank and start again. Doing that I will need to see if I get the 300 gal I need in time to boil. A week ago I was getting 1200+ gal in a day but that doesn't guarantee I will Monday.

[maple flats]

It's still early in the day, but unless I get more info that says my plans are flawed, this is the plan from here. Today, I don't run the vacuum pumps (No freeze since Wednesday morning). I boil permeate at the open house today. After the open house I do a complete wash again of the RO. There will be a freeze tonight. Then tomorrow I will run the vacuum pumps and after 4-5 hrs, I will dump all of the sap that was in the lines during the warm spell. Then wash all tanks except the permeate tank, flush all hoses, run the flue pan washer and drain everything in the evaporator then wash the syrup pan again.
At that point all offending sap should be gone and I will resume collecting fresh sap. My trees have not budded yet, in fact the buds even on the reds are all still tight, or were late yesterday. The overnight low at this point is 56 F. In the next 2 1/2 hrs the temperature will be down under 40 and will later rise back up to 40 again this afternoon. Then we will get a freeze tonight.
I think I tried to save sap too long with the temperatures we had. When the problem arose in the syrup pan, that sap was 2 days old. I had run it thru the RO, and when we had to shut down to clean the syrup pan in the afternoon that left sap and worse concentrate in the heat of the day, and in the pre-heater at maybe 130-150 F during the shutdown. That may have been the start of the jelling.
I have never had sap this long when warm temperatures prevailed. I would have normally boiled it on Thursday. Because of the Maple Weekend open house I tried to save it, my bad. I will never do that again. Lesson learned!
I would have normally drained the pans and add Vinegar to set overnight, but I had decided to boil permeate today, so I don't even know if the syrup pan got scorched yet. We never smelled that, but I will know today. If it is, I will swap the front pan, I have a spare just in case, it has not been on the arch for at least 5 years. It is the twin to the one that has been used all this time.

[Potters3]

Good plan, sounds like you got ropey. Clean everything start with fresh sap and you will be making gold again.

[wnybassman]

Makes me think I should fire up the evaporator today to re-sterilize everything before the potential run the next couple days.

[stoweski]

I had this happen a few years ago after letting the evaporator sit for a couple of warm days. After firing it up the foam almost boiled over the top of both pans. I was able to put the fire out quickly and, after it cooled for a bit, drained both pans, cleaned them really well, boiled vinegar & water, then let it sit for a day. Next day I rinsed really well and started with fresh sap. From that point on I was fine.

I haven’t boiled since Friday so I’m going to drain & paper filter everything, then clean the pans and start fresh on Monday. It looks like I have two more days of good weather and that’s it. Reds are swelling up so I’ll probably dump the sap from those in buckets and pull the taps on them.

Good luck today, Dave!

[n8hutch]

I dont think ropey syrup is a symptom of the saps quality when it leaves the tree. I think that it is more related to how you handle the sap, clean tanks, pump lines and such, A big source of Ropey Is the cold float box, I always flood my sap pan at the end of the boil to make make sure the float box liquid gets good and hot.

I think as long as you get good sap runs you can still make good syrup.

[Ghs57]

After reading this, I may call it a season. I boiled for about 3 hrs yesterday and noticed a change in the smell of the steam. Not terrible, but not as sweet as it has been up to them. Sap was a bit cloudy. Everything still tastes good though. But my remote IBC tank is getting funky, and is probably worse after the 70 degree day yesterday. That's where the bulk of my sap coms from. So, after what I consider my best season yet, I think I'm calling it done.

[RC Maple]

After a warm spell - 3 or so days in the 60's, a couple of years ago I was getting ready to boil the sweet I had drained and filtered from my pan after the last boil. Visually it looked fine but I thought I would take a closer look. Boy am I glad I did. I had the sweet in a 5 gal bucket and I dipped a big ladle into it. When I lifted the ladle out of the liquid, all of the sweet clung together and pulled itself out of the ladle and back into the bucket - I pulled up an empty ladle! Not sure what I just saw I did it again, and again. I wish I had a video of it. I showed my wife and we both marveled at what we saw. I still didn't know what I was seeing but a quick search on this site for symptoms of ropey syrup confirmed my fears. I still didn't want to throw it out so I put a small amount in a sauce pan and boiled it on the stove. It was like stringy jelly and after seeing that I had no problem dumping what I had and starting over. I'm sure glad I didn't try to boil that in my pan.

[maple flats]

I think the problem arose out of mainly 2 causes. My sap tanks are cleaned daily and my haul tanks are cleaned every time they are emptied, a quick permeate rinse. I think the first cause may have been the float box issue but then it was coupled with a pre-heater. When we shut down to clean the front pan during a boil, cold sap had just fed into the pre-heater. Likely the flue pan under the pre-heater was maybe 180-200 but had stopped boiling so there was little or no steam. The concentrate, at about 9-11% sugar in there warmed to maybe the perfect temperature for rapid growth of micro-organisms. Also what had flowed into the float box as it was pushed out of the pre-heater never heated to it's full temperature because we stopped fueling almost an hour earlier, and then it sat again at maybe the perfect temperature for micro-organisms there too. After cleaning the front pan we resumed fueling and about when the issue got bad might be about the time that sap/almost syrup would have gotten to near the draw off box and it then developed into the goo we had to clean up.
Today we cleaned everything in the sugarhouse and the hoses. After our first freeze since last Thursday morning, when it warms above freezing I will start the pumps and maybe 4 hrs later I'll dump the sap and wash the tanks. After that I will try to keep the sap and make more syrup.If I ever have to clean during mid boil again, I will drain the pre-heater and flood the flue pan to push hot into the float box to get that hot.
I wouldn't wish anything like this on anyone.

[1arch]

Had a similar scenario with ropey syrup a few years ago and continued the boil because I hoped the fresh sap I had coming in would push through. And it did. I just kept the ropey syrup in a separate bucket until good stuff started drawing off. Foam was a continuous battle until it pushed through though.

[maple flats]

I could have never done that, the piping from my draw off pan was rock hard, like hard candy, and the auto draw would not operate. I had to remove the contents of the pan, then remove the auto draw and work on that from the inside using hot permeate for a few minutes before the auto draw ball would even start to move. I had to run hot permeate thru it for at least 10 minutes before it functioned properly. Then I had to run hot permeate thru everything that is in between the draw off box and the auto draw. In the pan, it was not hard, just gooey. What got into the draw off tank was also hard like hard candy too. The auto draw was stuck open from trying to draw the goo that would not flow fast enough.
Now the good part, I boiled permeate all day yesterday, the pan came perfectly clean, I also cleaned the flue pan by boiling permeate (for 7 hrs), then followed that by running my flue pan washer for about 40 minutes. Everything now looks great.
I did not run the vacuum yesterday, still no freeze. We did get a freeze overnight which will thaw early afternoon today. My plan for that is to run the pumps long enough to pull fresh sap thru the lines (about 3 hrs at the sugarhouse and 5 hrs at the lease (longer distance at the lease). Then I will dump that sap and wash the tanks. Then I will resume collecting fresh sap.
I want to thank all who helped me with advice, both on the MT and one by phone call. I finally got some clues how to avoid this in the future.
I have a milk tank that I think might be able to be refrigerated and 2 compressors lined up to try using. If I can get that working, I will then be able to hold concentrate for future use, like for open houses when sap flow may not be good for collecting new sap. Also, I will never hold sap for 2 days if the temperatures will get warm, We had 52 F on Friday and 66 F on Saturday, all on Thursday's sap. I will also make sure the flue pan float box gets hot enough to kill micro-organisms whenever the evaporator is shut down and also the preheater will get drained into the hot flue pan. All of those combined should eliminate the possibility of making ropy syrup ever again.

[wnybassman]

You might want to consider a drain on your float box. My little rig has one and I can shut a valve between the flue pan and the float box, drain the float box and pour it right into the flue pan. I then throw a handful of fine split pine in the firebox to bring everything to a quick boil before I let it die out.

[maple flats]

I will be starting that, my float box has 2 compartments and each has a drain valve. I had just not learned I needed to drain it before this issue even though I have been at this for 17 seasons. I can drain mine, while still boiling in the flue pan and pour it into the flue pan, then let the boiling sap in the flue pan back into the float box.